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HISTORICAL REVELATIONS 



OF THE RELATION EXISTING BETWEEN 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM 



SINCE THE 



Disintegration of the Roman Empire. 



ROMAN EMPEROR JULIAN 

{Called tJye Apostate). 




BOSTON: 
COLBY & RICH, PUBLISHERS, 

Corner Bosworth and Province Streets. 

1886. 






COPYRIGHTED BY T. C. BUDDINGTON, 1886. 



T. C. BUDDINGTON'S 

(The Medium) 

STATEMENT, 



The question of obtaining accurate information 
from the chief actors in the historic realm has long 
been of great interest to me. Earthly history has 
always seemed to be deficient from its inability to 
record only the external acts; whereas the subtle 
forces which produce external acts seemed to be 
overlooked by the earthly historian, or, if understood, 
are passed by in silence. 

Causation in the realm of history, like causation 
in the sphere of physical forces, must be studied; 
and it seems to be the province of this work to inform 
the world of some of the true causes which have made 
modern civilization such a combination of heteroge- 
neous materials. 

The personal influence of the spirit, purporting to 
be Julian, is of the most pure and elevated character. 
There has never been a trace (discernable, at least) 
of any motive save to express in our language the 

(3) 



4 STATEMENT. 

true status of his own earthly career, with the influ- 
ence which, in after years, obscured the truth, and in- 
volved the world in mental darkness for a thousand 
years. 

It seems to be essential to all lovers of pure truth 
that such minds as those in accord with Julian, upon 
the spirit side of life, should have free access to this 
life ere there can be any very valuable ideas trans- 
mitted from the spirits. If this class of spirits can 
come to aid us in our pursuit of a knowledge of the 
truth, we shall be likely to have that type of thought 
which, if different from ordinary so-called spirit com- 
munications, may be as instructive and valuable in 
their special department as the latter. 

The time seems to be ripe for this class of influ- 
ences to be invited to contribute of their knowledge 
to our incomplete records; and, if mediumship has 
any value, it should be exercised where light is most 
needed. 



INTRODUCTION. 



It may seem to be an impossibility to the mortal 
mind for one who has been so long a resident in the 
world of spirit to be able to accurately convey to 
minds upon the earth sphere true ideas concerning 
his own age, and their relationship to the thoughts 
prevalent in succeeding ages. 

But if you will consider that the mental nature 
never ceases to exist, and its action is such that no 
experience is ever entirely forgotten, you can see that 
all that is required for the transmission of the ideas to 
the earthly side is a properly-constructed brain, to act 
as a registering-battery, and any idea ever held by 
any mind can be recorded in language intelligible to 
mortals, for language is only the vehicle for transmis- 
sion of ideas upon the earthly plane. 

There is a link in the chain of ideas which binds 
me to the earth sphere, because my work there was 
prematurely shortened by my sudden transition at a 
period fraught with great interest to the world. 

The revolutionary policy of Constantine, combined 
with the decay of polytheism, demanded the exercise 
of the wisest discretion in dealing with the new con- 

(5) 



b INTRODUCTION". 

ditions of public affairs, and upon me, above others, 
devolved the responsibility of arresting the tendency 
of the national life towards destruction. 

I was deprived of the opportunity to transfer the 
public attention from the influences of the old regime 
to the new policy by my death. My successors having 
been duly deprived of the exercise of private judgment 
through the craft of their priestly instructors let the 
Empire drift to destruction. 

The unscrupulous zeal with which my memory has 
been assailed creates a desire upon my part to return, 
and, through the only means at my disposal, correct 
the errors prevalent among mortals concerning my 
life on earth. 

I loved the truth, and reveled in the highest 
delights of exaltation while on earth, having the 
company of the wise and enlightened for counselors, 
and have never regretted the change of teachers 
which my thirst for knowledge instituted. 

Well would it have been for the world if I had 
succeeded in substituting the reign of philosophy 
and reason for religious dogmatism in that age; and 
better yet will it be if the world should ever be 
emancipated from all the slavish superstitions of the 
past through love of truth, and obedience to its man- 
dates. 

JULIAN. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE POLITICAL STATUS OF THE EMPIRE. 

It is with no feelings of acrimony or bitterness 
that I come back to the sphere of mortal thought, 
but rather to illuminate the profoundly darkened 
record of the ideas of my age. I was known as the 
Emperor Julian, — one whose name has been equally 
lauded for philosophic elevation of character, and 
condemned for apostacy to the religion of his youth. 

It is not my purpose to retrace the successive 
steps of calumny and malignant zeal whereby the 
light and glory of ancient philosophic truths were 
deliberately obscured, and in their place the stand- 
ards of bigoted ignorance and credulity erected. 
The time is ripe for the world to know the truth 
about that period of its history, when the prestige 
of Grecian philosophy was at its highest develop- 
ment. 

The Empire, for the first two centuries of the so- 
called Christian era, was not the prey of the seditious 
and destructive elements of human society, as history 
asserts ; but, with few exceptions, its emperors were 
men of liberal and advanced ideas of human progress, 
and sought the welfare of their subjects and the 

(7) 



8 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

Empire, although in so doing they depended upon 
the military resources too much for the ultimate 
good of the people. 

It is not true, however, that a spirit of war for the 
sake of conquest was the ruling motive of the na- 
tional character, although you, who read the history 
of that period, might justly think so. It was the 
purpose of Rome to bring all nations upon a basis of 
international security for individuals, and to be a 
Roman citizen carried with it the prerogative of 
protection from injustice greater than that possessed 
by its titled officials. 

The segis of protection being thrown over con- 
quered nations, enabled civilization to press forward 
with strides that were impossible among the isolated 
tribes and principalities, which, previous to their 
incorporation in the Empire, regarded strangers as 
enemies. 

It was the mission of imperial Rome to make civil- 
ized intercourse a possibility, where before inter- 
course was regarded as the precursor of invasion and 
destruction. Independence in tribal relations was 
the basis of political liberty ; but independence with- 
out cohesive union or confederation was the chief 
cause of barbaric isolation. Nations have distinct 
relations to human progress. They arise in obedi- 
ence to specific demands of the epochs in which they 
exist and flourish. They are not without definite 
and necessary functions in the sphere of human ad- 
vancement, and whenever they are acting in accord- 
ance with their natural relations to the race, they 
flourish and become great and powerful. 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 9 

Rome, under a republican form of government, 
consolidated and civilized the barbaric hordes of 
Western Europe, changing them from a host of war- 
ring tribes into the founders of the most powerful 
nations upon the earth existing at the present age. 
She did this by recognition of the principle of incor- 
porating all countries which submitted to her sway- 
as equals before the common law, and was the first 
nation of any great importance, in that age, which 
practically adopted the wisdom of Grecian philoso- 
phy in constructing a national government. 

Under this principle, despotic or arbitrary power 
upon the part of any ruler was attended with danger 
and disgrace, and could not be enforced for any great 
length of time. 

The change from the Republic to the Empire was 
not, as first appears, a retrogressive step, but was the 
result of the overwhelming preponderance of the 
military power, which sought relief from anarchy 
through centralization. I regard it as the legitimate 
fruits of the extension of the Empire toward the East, 
and the attempt to apply the same principles to 
nations civilized under despotic rulers which were 
found so successful in dealing with the barbarous 
hordes of the North. 

The introduction of Persian civilization created a 
disposition to utilize the military strength in con- 
quests for personal glory, and the subtlety of the 
Oriental character demanded a different exhibition 
of force than that held and exerted by the consuls, 
who could be suspended or degraded by the Roman 
Senate. 



10 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

It was this inadaptability of the Republic to deal 
with and incorporate into the body politic the nations 
of Asia that swayed the mind of Julius Csesar to turn 
his arms against the old regime, and center the power 
where it could successfully deal with the problems 
of Asiatic civilization. Julius never sought imperial 
power, because he was at heart a tyrant. In fact, he 
foresaw the evils as well as benefits that might, and 
probably would, result in a change ; but he also saw 
that in order to conserve the fruits of victory, the 
time was ripe for the nation to stretch its arm over 
the East, clothed with a power that the people of 
that type of civilization would respect and under- 
stand; and as there was nothing more to gain in 
Europe, he turned his arms against his old colleagues, 
and overthrew all that would or could prevent the 
full exercise of the Roman laws in the eastern part 
of the Empire. 

The practical effect of the change was beneficial 
to the eastern world. For the first time since the 
Assyrian Empire existed despotic power was exercised 
in behalf of human welfare, for Caesar never changed 
the civil code, except in adding to it the supreme 
power of Imperator, and under that title compelled 
the civil codes of the provinces to conform to that of 
Rome. 

HOME. 

All nations have what may be termed specific 
periods of vitality, arising from concentration of the 
mental power of the people upon definite lines of 
action. The Roman yoke — while foreign in name 
to the people of the Orient — nevertheless com- 



CHBISTIAKITY AND PAGANISM. 11 

mended itself to the philosophic thought of the en- 
lightened, for it made personal liberty of conscience 
inviolate, and, in so doing, enabled the thinking 
mind to fearlessly expand under the protection of 
the civil law. 

The recognition of all gods as equally worthy of 
adoration was the germ of that phase of religious 
toleration which, at the present time, emancipates 
the mind from a superstitious fear of any, and in 
that one principle alone is found the greatest factor 
in mental exaltation. 

My own history — as given to the world by the 
superstitious devotees of a mistaken interpretation 
of the old mysteries — is replete with errors which 
base minds always attribute to those whose men- 
tal status is in advance of their own. I was not a 
superstitious devotee of the pagan gods, nor did I 
strive to reinstate their worship among the people, 
as essential to a true conception of religious duties ; 
but I sought to elevate the populace above a super- 
stitious regard for any human deity, and in partak- 
ing of the ceremonial observances I made no distinc- 
tion in the rites for each and all, thereby hoping to 
express to the people my estimate of the folly of 
attaching much importance to the powers of any. 

My traducers, however, took good care to obliter- 
ate this view from history, and with undue acri- 
mony recorded what was really a philosophic satire 
upon themselves as a proof of a deep-seated purpose 
to restore, in its ancient splendor, the worship of 
deities who had become obsolete through a better 
understanding of the truth among the enlightened. 



12 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

My civil policy was for the restoration of the philo- 
sophic ideas which had made the Empire so powerful 
under the early emperors. Under the wretched man- 
agement of some of the later emperors justice and 
equality had departed from the representatives of the 
civil code, which made anything like unity of purpose 
among the different provinces an impossibility. The 
people no longer came to the support of the national 
power, and rebellion against it arose in all quarters, 
chiefly because it no longer commanded respect, from 
its disregard of justice expressed by its subordinate 
officers. 

Under the sway of military force a semblance of 
national unity indeed existed, but it was by the force 
of compulsion, not attraction. I sought to substi- 
tute for this the principles of equity and justice, and, 
had my life been spared, might have done something 
to have delayed the process whereby the Empire 
swiftly hastened to its destruction. 

I foresaw, from a knowledge of the overthrow of 
the old Greek republic, that the nation, however 
powerful in external appearance, could not long 
remain intact with internal dissension preying upon 
its vitals, and also understood well the policy of 
Constantine and his sons to avert the forthcoming 
dissolution of the Empire. They adopted the mis- 
taken policy of force and treachery in dealing with 
the just claims of the populace, and sought by vio- 
lence to establish the imperial power upon a basis of 
despotic authority, although thereby alienating the 
good will of the enlightened and influential portion 
of their subjects. 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 13 

I strove to reinstate the old policy of justice and 
equality, and can truly say that, although my life 
was often in danger from the jealousy of my rela- 
tions, j^et never did a subject of mine (once under- 
standing the motives of my reign) think of raising 
the standard of revolt against me. I was compelled 
by the affection of my soldiers to assume the purple, 
when nothing but a hope and wish for the ability to 
exercise the imperial power for the benefit of the 
people would have tempted me, for a moment, from 
the exercise of the pursuits of study and philosophy. 
It was a vain attempt upon my part. But it was 
the only policy that could have averted the fate 
which afterwards befell the Empire. 

The Christian priesthood at Rome, and through- 
out the Empire, were, even then, plotting the destruc- 
tion of the civil power, and substituting for it the 
supremacy of ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the race. 

It was one of those peculiar phases of mental 
obscuration that naturally follow from the too close 
observance of one range of ideas. And the subordi- 
nation of everything in the Empire to the military 
power paved the way for the subjection of the 
civil code to the ecclesiastical claims for universal 
dominion. 

I do not think there would have been any possi- 
ble chance for the overthrow of the imperial power 
had the later emperors of the third century been 
faithful to the principles of the old laws. But they 
had abandoned many of the most essential features 
of the old national policy, and the artful influence of 
the Christian priesthood made it comparatively easy 



14 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

to change the current of national prosperity into the 
dark channels of shame and degradation. 

Constantine sought to restore the traditional splen- 
dor of the Augustan age, but failed in the effort to 
perpetuate that regard for the nation which is the 
only basis of true prosperity ; for, by the admission of 
the Christian priesthood to a controlling influence in 
shaping the education of the youth, he submitted at 
the most critical period of mental activity the plastic 
mind of youth to the influence of superstition and 
intrigue in place of the lofty thoughts and ideals of 
the Platonic philosophy. 

Christian superstition sought to enforce its tenets 
upon the mind through suppressive action of the 
intellectual faculties, by insisting upon belief in 
authority as superior to the effect of inquiry and 
investigation; and although the priesthood of the 
old religions had asserted the existence and suprem- 
acy of the gods, it had never assumed to transcend 
the teachings of philosophy by its oracles; for, in 
fact, the oracles were but the methods whereby the 
philosophy of past ages was enshrined and under- 
stood in its deepest significance. 

There were, however, efforts made during the 
period preceding Constantine to consolidate priestly 
authority with the civil power ; but it was during his 
reign and his immediate successor when the greatest 
effort was made to substitute sacerdotal officers as 
the best instructors for the youth, : — a policy I saw 
and felt to be fraught with destructive tendencies to 
both truth and the Empire. Hence, I instituted a 
different policy; for I saw that the philosophic 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 15 

schools were safer auxiliaries to the true national 
welfare than the Christian priesthood, inasmuch as 
they placed a higher estimate upon the growth of 
moral power in the individual than a desire for con- 
quest and personal aggrandisement. 



CHAPTER II. 

HISTOBY OF THE OLD EOMAN EMPIRE. — THE TRAN- 
SITION FROM THE REPUBLIC TO THE AUTOCRATIC 
FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 

The records of the old Roman Empire are replete 
with instruction to the student of political forces. 
They have been mutilated and falsified to such a 
degree that the present age fails to comprehend in 
scarcely any degree the real influence and power that 
epoch in history has had in shaping the governing 
powers of modern civilization. 

The great results which have arisen from the adop- 
tion of the political status of that period are seen 
in the acknowledgment of individual rights, irrespec- 
tive of creed, race, or religion. Rome, under the 
Caesars, gave the world the supremacy of the civil 
law against the machinations of craft and ambition, 
— either in religion or autocracy. Externally, it does 
not appear to have done so. But as long as knowl- 
edge of the truth is diffused, it will be perceived that 
Roman civilization was based upon the principles of 
equality of all before the law. And no immunity 
from just penalty for transgressions was withheld 
from emperor or peasant without a defiance of law, 

(16) 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 17 

which, if exerted by the ruling power, generally 
resulted in assassination. I do not mean by this 
that individual transgressions of the civil policy by 
certain emperors were not sometimes condoned; but 
never, for the first two centuries, did any emperor 
fail to receive just punishment who deliberately 
sought to annul the great principle of Roman citizen- 
ship, — a principle that was supreme in the consti- 
tution of the government. 

It was here that the only great question of policy 
arose, when Julius Caesar transferred the imperial 
power from the senate to the throne ; and as long as 
the throne respected it, it in turn supported the 
imperial executive. 

It was never contemplated by the advocates of 
imperialism to establish a despotism ; and Julius 
himself, although ambitious to wield imperial power, 
sought only to use it in behalf of the old national 
policy. His assassination was one of those blunders 
that are worse than crimes ; for, with the exception 
of Brutus, no other conspirator enlisted in that en- 
terprise who would not have established autocratic 
authority had he been in Julius's position. Julius 
sought to avert the disintegration of the Republic 
into factions that would have been mutually destruc- 
tive, and, in destroying each other, obliterated the 
sentiment of human responsibility for crime. 

His act preserved the nation from premature dis- 
memberment, and, at the same time, gave the illiter- 
ate hordes of the West the refining influence of the 
East, without destroying the independent disposition 



18 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

which has ever since marked the civilization of 
Europe. 

In the transition from the barbarian condition to 
civilization, the European character became subject 
to no influence for evil until after the age of Con- 
stantine, but rather rose steadily from its state of 
traditional savagery toward that of semi-civilization. 
Its people were stern and self-reliant, furnishing the 
best of material for a conquering soldiery, and yet 
holding the love of honor, and regard for honor, as 
prime factors of character. They were a worthy 
race to absorb the old principles of the Republic, and 
interweave them in the solid character which marks 
the German and Briton of the present age. 

THE RELIGIOUS STATUS. 

No history of the Empire which conceals or 
ignores the true state of religious thought during 
my age is worthy of trust or consideration. There- 
fore I deem it necessary to write more explicitly 
upon that subject than upon the merely military or 
civil status. 

The religious ideas of the Empire were a crude 
mass of ill-digested absurdities. The western my- 
thology had its votaries in the soldiery, drawn from 
the regions of Spain, Gaul, and Germany, who brought 
to the eastern provinces the crude legends of their 
own nations. The transferral of the legions from 
one province to another served to introduce the pecu- 
liar ideas of each section, for in the wake of the army 
followed priest and proselyter of the ruling power. 

This process of intermingling of nations was the 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 19 

policy adopted by the Empire to prevent insurrection, 
and without that as a preliminary Christian faith 
could not have been as successful as it was in becom- 
ing known to such a vast number in so short a 
period. 

I do not think that the Christian emperors ever 
realized the true reason for such a widespread accept- 
ance of the Christian faith ; but it seems to me to 
have originated in the disposition of the masses to 
curry favor with the ruling power. 

As long as the pagan emperors controlled the 
destinies of the Empire no special effort was made to 
substitute the worship of Jupiter for that of Thor, 
Odin, or other gods; but the inevitable effect of 
military success was to pave the way for the priests 
of all faiths to compare and council together. 

When the Empire had made interchange of relig- 
ious ideas possible, and protected the worshipers of 
all gods equally, the immediate result was — not as 
might be supposed — jealousy and contention, but 
combination, and, where possible, substitution of the 
ideas nearest to those held by the civil power. 

It was the constant aim of the Christian priest- 
hood to unify the religions of the Empire, and never 
were efforts more persistently made by any class of 
minds to combine the same essential ideas in all 
religions in one than were made by them. 

There was a fanatical impulse from the spiritual 
world itself which facilitated this ; for some of the 
more ambitious minds in spirit life thought that a 
great good to the race might result from the estab- 
lishment of a uniform standard rather than from 



20 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

such diversity as had formerly prevailed, and through 
psychological impressions carried their dupes to the 
utmost bounds of the Empire, and even beyond them, 
in their zeal to effect what nature has made an im- 
possibility. Hence, although the efforts were nom- 
inally successful in many instances, the real result 
was to retard mental growth among those peoples 
who were unfitted by their birth and surroundings 
to accept such ideas in their true significance. With 
their success developed a love of power, which in- 
creased to such an extent as to control the civil 
power ; and, by virtue of invisibility, it held a tre- 
mendous influence in mortal life through the ignor- 
ance there concerning it. It was the transposai of 
the old oracular power which was once regarded as 
advisory only to that of an arbitrary, invisible auto- 
cracy, and with more terrible results to mortals than 
ever was possible under the old pagan regime. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH UPON 
THE DESTINY OF THE EMPIRE. — HOW IT SHOULD 
BE CONSIDERED BY ALL THOUGHTFUL MINDS. 

As the history of the western Empire is chiefly a 
record of ecclesiastical triumphs, it necessitates a 
chapter, or series of chapters, upon the efforts of the 
civil power to recover its rightful position in the rela- 
tions of human rights to priestly assumption. 

The importance of the work of the minds of 
past ages in shaping the thought of the present can- 
not be estimated by those in mortal life. As the 
tree is known by its fruits, so does the mental bias 
of early teachings produce that condition (mental 
peculiarity) which makes criminality of action seem 
to be just and expedient. 

Constantine the Great was subject from his earli- 
est recollection to scenes of blood and violence. His 
mother was a woman of unscrupulous ambition, with- 
out moral restraint, and she duly instilled in his 
youthful mind the base motives which actuated her- 
self, and coupled with her great influence was the 
crafty policy of Eusebius, whose character was with- 
out honesty, or regard for truth. 

(21) 



22 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

I knew well the hatred and dissimulation that 
were the governing motives of that family, and how 
little I had to hope from them, if I had desired to 
participate in the political relations which embroiled 
the rest of my family, and so chose to devote myself 
to the pursuits of science and philosophy. Eusebius 
was governed by the motive of establishing his own 
fame in literature, and, in order to do this, catered 
to the prejudices of Constantine, promising him to 
so record his deeds, as a monarch, as to give poster- 
ity a great regard for the events of his age. Con- 
stantine was so desirous of appearing to posterity as 
the equal of Augustus that he transferred the seat of 
government to Byzantium, and sought to emulate 
the history of Julius as the founder of a new regime 
which should combine the splendor of the East with 
the power of the West. 

The transfer of the capital to Byzantium left the 
West at the mercy of ecclesiastical power, which was 
unscrupulous^ exerted to pave the way for a gen- 
eral transferral of authority from the civil to the relig- 
ious order, and thereby overthrow the policy which 
had enabled Rome, under the first emperors, to suc- 
cessfully conserve and extend the power of the 
Republic. 

I think the ecclesiastical history of Eusebius was 
intended by him to help produce this result, although 
he himself did not realize nor imagine that it would, 
or could, be accomplished in so short a space of time. 
But herein must be considered the power of the spir- 
itual realm which ever was exerting its influence 
upon the affairs of the nation. 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 23 

From the earliest ages the mental power of such, in 
spirit life, as had arisen to an appreciation of the im- 
portance of truth and philosophy in the life of mor- 
tals was directed toward the perfection of conditions 
whereby the plastic mind could develop under the 
ideas of truth and justice. 

They centered their power upon Rome, from its 
commanding position upon the Mediterranean, and 
developed first the military element which gave it 
success in war. They chose Rome to embody the 
great principle of equality before the law as a gen- 
eric principle of national safety. 

No nation could successfully contend with her; 
for, literally, the gods fought for her, and inspired 
her soldiery with immortal valor. She conquered 
and incorporated all as parts of the national body 
politic, obedient to this spiritual force which sought 
by her to overthrow autocratic authority or tribal 
anarchy. There was never any essential defeat to 
her arms as long as this spiritual force over her was 
recognized and obeyed; but from the time when 
Constantine and the priesthood, under Eusebius, 
sought to establish autocratic power through relig- 
ion, using the force of the civil law to regulate and 
overthrow the ideas of the old philosophy, then the 
spiritual power which sought to preserve the civil 
supremacy was withdrawn, or rather could no longer 
exert its influence save to oppose the tendency of the 
age, and internal dissention took the place of the 
old spirit of co-operation and extension of the Em- 
pire. 

Truly there was a spiritual force being exerted in 



24 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

behalf of Constantine by the selfish and ambitious 
spirits who had reveled in similar scenes of blood 
and disorder. But they lacked the lofty aspirations 
of the old fathers of the nation, and also the wisdom 
whereby they could safely direct the affairs of the 
State from the dangers that beset it through their 
own disregard of true principles. 

The old spiritual forces were, indeed, withdrawn ; 
but not without struggles to reach the minds upon 
whom had fallen the nominal power, and occasion- 
ally they reached one or another ; but never could 
they hold their influence sufficiently to restrain the 
madness which hurled the Empire to its ruin through 
the determination of the religious element to retain 
its power over the people through cultivating their 
superstitious nature. 

If the statements of history regarding the life of 
the period of which I write were true, I should not 
care to attempt their refutation ; but as I can see 
clearly the motives and results of these fictions, I 
feel like doing what I can to prevent their further 
influence upon the interests of the present age. 

The great political force of Rome was not always 
seen, nor exemplified, by those who wore the purple, 
nor did the merely external pomp of the throne show 
the real purpose of its invisible supporters. 

The populace were, indeed, placated for a time 
with the shows and spectacles of the arena ; but the 
games and combats were really small factors in the 
governing principles of the Empire, though historians 
have given them so much importance. They reflected 
the ideas of military conquest which had become a 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 25 

second nature to so many in the Empire by accustom- 
ing the youth to scenes of blood and carnage, but 
they were not upheld by the lovers of philosophy and 
study, nor did they cease, or, rather, the principles 
die, which made them possible when the Empire 
changed from the pagan to the Christian faith. 

The thirst for blood which, under the old reign, 
was satisfied with the slaughter of beasts and crimi- 
nals, under the new was satiated by the most cruel 
tortures inflicted upon human beings for heresy; and 
if the vilest criminals were spared the pangs of lace- 
ration at the hands of each other, the most innocent, 
and often praiseworthy, specimens of human culture 
were forced prematurely from earthly life because of 
their fidelity to truth. 

The spirit of persecution and torture was never cher- 
ished nor exercised by the best philosophic thought 
of my age any more than in yours, and the desire for 
conquest, or exercise of power over others, is a sure 
index of that type of development that made the 
savage scenes of the arena a possibility in the age of 
the Empire, or lighted the fires of the Inquisition in 
the later period of fanaticism. 

I would that I could correctly impress upon the 
thought of the present age the true idea of intellect- 
ual and moral growth. It is not by the exercise of 
arbitrary force over the will of the ignorant and err- 
ing, nor by cultivating the superstitious nature of 
ignorant minds, but by asserting and demonstrating 
the truth as nature, and the study of nature reveals 
truth, that the race is elevated to a higher plane of 
life. 



26 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

The gods of Greece and Rome were misunderstood 
ideals. The God of Christian worship is an equally 
misunderstood ideal, taken from the best thought of 
speculative philosophy. 

Had not the philosophy of Plato and Pythagoras 
permeated the thought of the Empire, Christian reve- 
lation would not, and could not, have obtained a 
footing, even with all the military and civil power 
at its command. 

It was a compromise between the superstition of 
the past and the evolution of the future, and held 
its position by force, until the barbaric hordes of the 
North became sufficiently enlightened to substitute 
individual independence of thought, under the phrase 
" liberty of conscience," when its true nature be- 
came subject for the first time to intellectual scru- 
tiny and criticism. 

In the attempt of the priesthood, under Constan- 
tine, to change the type of religious thought, there 
was no apparent disposition to do more than embody 
the philosophic ideals of Platonism in the State relig- 
ion. Secretly, there was a deep determination upon 
the part of its priesthood to utilize these ideals as a 
permanent power to modify and, as far as possible, 
overthrow the military spirit which had become too 
arbitrary in its policy towards individual rights ; and 
had the Christian religion stopped here, it might have 
been a powerful factor in changing the destructive 
tendency of the military policy. 

But it changed all that had made it co-operative 
with philosophy by its claims to arbitrary power over 
the soul, and in that one principle alienated the lovers 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 27 

of truth, allied to the military despotism the most 
aggravated form of mental tyranny, and when both 
became firmly seated on the throne, the mild and 
beneficent policy of Plato was swept into oblivion, 
and in its place darkness and desolation crept over 
the nations composing the old Empire, covering light 
and learning with a pall of errors through which 
feeble rays only could be perceived for more than a 
thousand years. 

I do not wish you to think that in my endeavors to 
give you the truth about the mental state of the early 
Empire I make these charges against the mistaken 
devotees of Christianity, because they have recorded 
such false tales about the moral and religious status 
of the old Empire, or that Deity was so offended that 
he gave the ruling power into their hands whereby 
the temporal power of Rome was succeeded by the 
spiritual supremacy it has held since that age. 

It was a natural result of a natural law which no 
ruler or policy could have prevented, unless he had 
changed the policy of the Empire at the time of 
Trajan in behalf of a universal republic, and brought 
the philosophy of Apollonius of Tyana, with the re- 
sults of certain discoveries in science at Alexandria, 
to the aid of the nation. I think the time then was 
ripe for the co-operation of the wisest and best minds 
of the Empire to have so changed the national policy 
that the principle which you call "elective fran- 
chise " for the masses might have been safely adopted, 
and the nation not have been left subject to the will 
of a victorious, and often mercenary, soldiery. 

I say, I think so ; for at that time the great con 



28 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

solidation of interests, which had been the policy of 
Julius to effect, had been successfully accomplished ; 
and I am sure that then, if ever, would have been 
the time for the people to have had a direct voice in 
determining the choice of the executive. 

If Roman civilization under the Empire was defec- 
tive in some of its details, it certainly was far from 
being what history — as transmitted by its defamers 
— would seem to indicate. That such a nation could 
arise, holding the position of general arbitrator of so 
many diverse peoples without some great inherent 
power, is so anomalous as to need no comment. 
The great power of the Empire lay in its regard for 
general principles which underlie human progress; 
and it can truly be said that, under her pagan emper- 
ors, no nation was made any the worse who sub- 
mitted to her yoke. Petty tyrants were compelled 
to submit to the greater power, and the greater power 
was too absorbed in providing for the contingencies 
of the general welfare to pay attention to the trivial 
demands of personal ambition. 

It is the peculiar province of imperial power to be 
instrumental in giving the masses a greater liberty 
than possible under lesser governments, and as long 
as the imperial power remained at Rome, undivided 
in its exercise, the Empire flourished as it never did 
after its removal to Byzantium. It was a mistake 
for Constantine to have removed the seat of power, 
for, in so doing, he lost the regard and support of 
the western part of the Empire. 

When the barbarian hordes of the North poured 
down upon the doomed city, there was no incentive 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 29 

upon the part of the people, who had been taught a 
servile dependance upon their priesthood, to turn 
back the tide of invasion ; and that principle which, 
in the days of ancient Rome, had aroused the military 
ardor of every Roman to successful resistance was 
entirely wanting. 

There can be no successful nationality which does 
not first find expression in obedience to the uni- 
versal desire for self-preservation, and it is worthy of 
the attention of students of ancient history how su- 
pine and effeminate the nation of Rome became 
under the domination of the Christian priesthood. 
Beset and overthrown by barbarian and Christian, 
the prey of every enemy, her history for the past 
thousand years has been a striking contrast to that 
which she had under the pagan rule. 

Cannot her Christian apologists see and understand 
that her fall was not from devotion to the pagan 
gods, but from her subservience to her Christian 
superstition? 

Brennus met steel when he came, but Attila had 
gold only to vanquish his power. This was the dif- 
ference between the type of manhood bred by the 
laws of the old faith and that encouraged by the 
new. 

Roman manhood sank before the weight of a false 
regard for the claims of a false religion ; but human- 
ity suffered not less from the power and pangs of 
war. 

The earth was stained with blood, shed in a vain 
strife for supremacy, without justice ; and it is a 
striking comment upon the claims of the Christian 



30 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

faith that it was not able to subvert the military 
spirit among its believers ; for the history of the old 
Roman empire, since its division and overthrow, is a 
series of bloody wars, in which personal liberty and 
civil rights have been disregarded by each faction, 
although the nations engaged in these wars professed 
allegiance to the same religion, whose claims for 
divine origin rests upon its devotion to the princi- 
ples of universal brotherhood. 

Christianity was never able to restrain the passions 
of men from mutual slaughter, and it lacked the 
fundamental power of enforcing its edicts by ignor- 
ing the cultivation of the military spirit for the pres- 
ervation of national life. Hence, it could instigate 
evil, but rarely could it promote the welfare of its 
subjects in the practical details of life, — unlike the 
old spirit of conquest which permeated the Empire 
and welded the conquered nations into unity of pur- 
pose. 

CHRISTIAN ROME DISINTEGRATED, THE EMPIRE AND 
THE WORLD IS LEFT IN WORSE THAN EGYPTIAN 
DARKNESS FOR MORE THAN A THOUSAND YEARS. 

I look back over this period of the world's history 
in astonishment, mingled with indignation, that such 
an outcome could have followed the brilliant prom- 
ise of the Empire during the first three centuries of 
the Christian era. Despite the corruption of the peo- 
ple, by the influence of Persian and Egyptian civil- 
ization, I believe that had Constantine and his succes- 
sors kept the capital of the Empire in their grasp at 
Rome, or, failing to appreciate its importance there, 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 31 

had refused to permit the ecclesiastical power to usurp 
its functions, the western nations might have been 
held firm to their allegiance, and the world have had 
a different history. 

The Empire of the West had all the elements of a 
mighty nationaKty which would, under central author- 
ity, based upon the old civil code, have given a civil- 
ization unstained with innocent blood, and capable of 
the highest degree of human progression. It came 
nearly to this condition after centuries of darkness, 
but not until the destructive features of the ecclesi- 
astical power at Rome were discarded. 

The failure to reach the high standard of national 
unity, which would have prevented war and enforced 
a true method of adjusting disturbances between the 
provinces, came from the loss of the military pres- 
tige which the Empire alone had with each section, 
and losing that hold, the nations of Europe have 
developed slowly, because of the absorption of so 
much force in jealousies and mutual antagonism. 

For the people, born and bred under such con- 
ditions, there remains nothing but servility and long 
endurance of evils that breed riot and revolution at 
home, or an appeal to arms against fancied wrongs 
from neighboring kingdoms. The old remedy, which 
was popular at Rome for this state of feeling among 
the barbarian provinces, was the enlistment and occu- 
pation of the troops in foreign conquest, so that the 
balance of power was kept even between the people 
and the government. 



32 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

IT IS NECESSARY TO REVERT TO THE THOUGHT OF 
PAST AGES IF ONE WOULD KNOW THE FULL SIG- 
NIFICANCE OF THE IDEAS OF THE PRESENT. 

I can see clearly the mistaken policy of the Romish 
Church in concealing the relations it holds to human 
history, and why it is so strenuous for the survival 
of its dogmas. 

By this I mean that the reconstructed paganism of 
its creed is the great obstacle to a true appreciation 
of its mission in the world. Mary, as the mother of 
Christ, and the spouse of Jehovah, is but another 
version of the Egyptian and Hellenic ideas of the 
divine relationship existing between creative power 
and earthly results. As a mythical tradition it does 
no harm ; but, taught as a sacred truth, it is the basis 
of almost infinite error. 

The world of mortals is so subject to its delete- 
rious influence that the bare description of its origin 
is believed to be a shocking blasphemy, and the men- 
tal powers of otherwise well-educated minds are held 
in abeyance through fear of it. 

I would it were possible to delineate the whole 
process whereby the transition of the pagan rites, 
and the interpretation of the symbols, was accom- 
plished ; but that is a difficult task, owing to the 
slow and secret methods utilized by the actors. It 
was, however, upon nearly the same plane of action 
whereby the ideas of the Christian church of the 
present age are travestied in the creed and deeds of 
the mob known as the "Salvation Army"; and if 
you can imagine a great nation under the mental 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 33 

influence of such a body of worshipers, you can get 
some idea of what power governed the masses of the 
church in the time of Constantine. 

It was, indeed, a church militant, with the most 
responsible positions of educational and other equally 
important trusts in the hands of the ignorant, fanat- 
ical priesthood, which, having been elevated from the 
slums and gutters of the Empire under Constantine, 
sought by violence aud intrigue to maintain suprem- 
acy over the schools of Plato and Pythagoras. 

I sought to change this by excluding such ignor- 
ance from controlling the destiny of a mighty empire, 
but in vain. 

Do 3'ou wonder that some of us arise in wrath, and 
almost vengeance, when we behold the ruin and 
desolation wrought among the fairest lands of earth 
by the successful introduction and propagation of 
those old errors, and, through all available channels, 
seek to overthrow forever the power which still sits 
in imperial Rome fulminating edicts against the free 
exercise of the mind and conscience ? When you 
realize that all that is really valuable in mortal or 
spirit life is the untrammeled development of the 
mind, — that spiritual growth is the outcome of a 
knowledge of truth, gained by experience or educa- 
tion, — then you will understand why we are so earn- 
est about the propagation of truthful ideas upon 
earth, and the abandonment of all error by all minds. 
It is not against individual creeds that we wage this 
warfare, but against the false basis of the creed 
itself. 

We know how difficult it is to change the type of 



34 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

mentality when ignorance of the truth is its chief 
factor, and, therefore, are desirous 

THAT INTELLIGENT IDEAS UPON ALL SUBJECTS 
SHOULD BE TAUGHT AND UNDERSTOOD BY MOR- 
TALS. 

The primal ideas of the Christian faith are ficti- 
tious tales taken from the old myths. They were mis- 
understood by the Christian laity in my day, but 
were not unknown to the majority of the priesthood, 
and it has only been by their persistent reiteration 
as truth through succeeding ages that they have be- 
come permanent fixtures (in mortal life) among 
many nations. The tenacity with which the mind 
clings to the ideas, taught as truth in early life, is 
the great power by which these myths have become 
so strongly entrenched, and it is only by the contin- 
ued efforts of the enlightened in both worlds to im- 
press the truth about them upon the ignorant that 
there is any hope of ever lifting their influence from 
the myriad hosts who still believe in them as divine 
truths. 

The myths (as of Mary and Jesus itself) are as 
groundless as that of Isis and Horus ; let once the 
idea of either prevail as a divine revelation, and all 
the train of evil influences which secretly follow in 
the wake of each would again flood the nations with 
the fell results of vice and crime. 

Truth has no need of rites and ceremonies, nor 
should it be veiled in secret mysteries. The mys- 
teries themselves are nothing more than private 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 35 

seances, with their necessary conditions for success- 
ful results. 

The plain statement — that all oracles of the gods 
and methods of divination were but the efforts of 
spirits to reach mortals with certain ideas — is the 
truth ; and all else about the historical romances of the 
gods are fictions of a corrupt priesthood to cover flagi- 
tious crimes. 

CONTRASTS BETWEEN THE PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN 
PERSECUTION. 

It has been the fashion with the Catholic hierarchy 
to charge the Empire with permitting the worst forms 
OB licentiousness and vice to flourish under its pagan 
rulers ; but little has ever been said by it about the 
state of morals during the epoch of its Christian 
emperors. 

If the veil of hypocrisy which covers this period 
should ever be lifted by those in the spirit world 
cognizant of it, the world would cry out in horror 
at the terrible sacrilege committed under apparent 
approval of the appointed vicegerents of Christ. 

Suffice it to say that so far from virtue being pro- 
tected, and vice punished, the chiefest recommenda- 
tion of the religion itself was in its promised immu- 
nity to the guilty from all punishment in either 
world for the most heinous offenses, if committed in 
behalf of the faith. 

Pagan Rome never devised such tortures for the 
worst criminals as did Christian Rome for innocent 
heretics ; and never was blood shed more freely in 
gladiatorial combats, for the populace to feast their 



36 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

eyes upon, than flowed from the veins of those who 
were not even given a chance for safety by the rever- 
sal of the popular judgment. 

I have witnessed scenes of cruelty in various portions 
of what was the Empire, since my transition, which 
would have appalled the stoutest warrior under the 
reigns of Galerius and Domitian, and have turned 
the edge of the sword of the former in behalf of the 
Christian victims who, guiltless of any crime, suffered 
the direst penalties that malice and baffled rage could 
inflict. 

These martyrs to conviction of conscience are 
unrecorded upon the pages of worldly history ; but 
they are not forgotten, and their power will yet be 
felt in undermining and overturning a religious sys- 
tem which made such deeds possible on earth. 

Turn back the tide of a thousand years and behold 
the implements of torture which yet remain as mute 
witnesses of the type of character evolved under the 
policy of Augustine and Jerome. Think you that 
the apostate Julian would have permitted such a 
stain upon his name and character? Would Marcus 
Aurelius or even Domitian have been guilty of con- 
signing human beings to the embrace of the Virgin? 
Answer, O Roman Pontiff, who sits upon their ruined 
throne, and see if ever again the Quirinal shall re- 
spond to the bidding of the Vatican ! 

Thou hadst thy time in full to transcend the rec- 
ord of the Caesars ; but thy page in history is so 
defiled with the blood of the innocent that in mercy 
to thy victims thy power to slay is taken from thee 
and placed in the hands of those who will never again 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 37 

permit it to be exercised on earth. It is not in thy 
power to stay the sword of justice which, at last, 
has overtaken thee. And if pagan Rome fell, as thou 
claimest, because of its disregard of human weal, 
thou, too, shalt not escape. 

Know this : that those who once held the power 
over nations, which enabled thee to carry thy man- 
dates to all peoples, have no less power in turning 
the course of empires w 7 hereby humanity shall escape 
thy present malevolence, and render all thy efforts to 
regain supremacy a nullity. 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATIONAL LIFE. 

The philosophy of civilization consists of keeping 
the balance of power between the conservative and 
progressive elements of society. This policy was the 
true course which Rome pursued among the barbarian 
hordes of the West, and the effeminate civilization of 
the East. She preserved the autonomy of her own 
State lyy carrying the principles of self-control among 
the nations she conquered, and elevating them as 
much as possible above the plane of despotic power. 
Her great mission was the introduction among na- 
tions of the principles of co-operation of forces in 
national aggrandisement. 

In time she changed this policy for one of a differ- 
ent type, by introducing the arbitrary methods of 
the East, which occasioned the dissatisfaction among 
the provinces, and led to repeated rebellions. 

I do not see how Rome could have been over- 
thrown by any external force as long as she pre- 
served the supremacy of the old civil code ; but when 



88 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

that was surrendered to the power of ecclesiastical 
dictation, the national spirit departed from the heart 
of the populace, and disintegration rapidly ensued. 

I know it has been said that nations must have 
their periods of growth and decay, like other pro- 
ductions of earth ; but I now perceive that the life 
principle of growth in nations is immortal as in man, 
and no nationality need perish if it holds it intact. 

Governments are overthrown when they cease to 
be imbued with this principle ; and, when externally 
crushed by foreign powers, the true nation exists as 
long as the people will it to exist. Therefore, I say, 
that Rome might have stood to the present age under 
the power of just laws, and given to modern civiliza- 
tion the ripe fruits of generations of wisdom, while 
the terrible period of the dark ages never would have 
left its blight upon the pages of what should have 
been the brightest chapter in the record of ages. 

From the hights of eternal wisdom we now see 
clearly the results of misdirected efforts, and the 
range of our vision takes in the vista of the world's 
past history, as yours would if it were emblazoned 
upon a gigantic panorama. 

O Rome, thou mistress of the world ! How are 
thou fallen from the high destiny foretold to Numa 
Pompilius ! Thy boasted rule over all nations which 
many claim as its true fulfillment is thy deepest deg- 
radation ; for not in deception and ignorance was 
thy greatest strength to be exercised. Thy triumph 
over the mind, unlike thy triumph over thy ancient 
foes, brings woe and desolation, without the amelio 
rating influence of right and justice. 









CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 39 

Thy rule is that which paralyzes and blights hu- 
man energy, and thy peace is the peace of death. 
Under thy sway the nations perish, and the clouds 
of blackness and despair lie, like a pall, upon the 
mind and conscience of the race. Should thy fell 
power again envelop humanity, without the light of 
philosophy to avert its effects, the human race might 
well imagine that thy ancient light of truth and rea- 
son had set in darkness forever. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY UPON THE NA- 
TIONS OF WESTERN EUROPE AFTER THE DISIN- 
TEGRATION OF THE EMPIRE. 

It has often been asked by the defenders of Cathol- 
icism : What would have been the result had Julian 
lived long enough to have successfully inaugurated 
his policy as the governing principle of the Empire ? 

I will answer that question by saying, that my 
position at that period was a critical one, which, 
sometimes, marks an epoch in the world's history. 
I am not vain enough to ascribe to personal ability 
the results that might have followed ; but I believe 
that had I succeeded in transferring the control of 
the youth of that period to the charge of philosophic 
minds, and held them there for one generation, the 
history of subsequent ages would have been for the 
better. 

I meant to transfer the thought of my age to other 
channels than those of military conquest, or servile 
obedience to imperial power. It was a time in which 
the elements of a new nationality were germinating, 
and with discreet management there could have been 
a nationality born and developed which would have 

(40) 



CHRISTIANITY AKD PAGANISM. 41 

been free from the corruption and tyranny of Con- 
stantine and his successors, and also free from the 
germs of a superstitious ecclesiasticism. I had thought 
to elevate the old principles of religious toleration, 
and give protection to all faiths to such prominence 
that never again would persecution for religion he per- 
mitted or desired by any subsequent ruler ; and I 
sought to do this by placing all religions upon a 
common footing before the civil law. 

The determination of the Christian priesthood to 
monopolize the channels of learning, and their per- 
sistence in seeking to control the mental force of the 
Empire through their policy of confounding the phil- 
osophic thought of the age with religious dogmas, 
inspired the thoughtful minds of my age with alarm, 
lest the fundamental principles of truth and justice 
should be undermined, and the nation perish; and 
the unwise policy of persecution was at first attempted 
to crush out incipient danger to the State; but, like 
all mistaken measures of violence, proved to be a 
failure. 

It has been said that, had I returned successfully 
from the campaigns against the Persians, I should 
have reinaugurated an era of persecution before 
which that of Diocletian would have been unworthy 
of mention ; but that idea arose from the minds of 
those who were inflamed with that fanatical regard 
for religious ideas which carry men beyond the 
bounds of reason, or regard for truth. 

I never believed in the policy which the former 
emperors adopted to crush out the incipient danger 
to the civil code ; but I did believe that a policy of 



42 CHEISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

enlightenment of the ignorant concerning the foun- 
dation of all religions would lift the State above all 
danger from any faith. 

I understood well the true source of the Christian 
ideas far better than most of their defenders; and 
had the policy I sought to reinstate been adopted by 
my successors, there would not have been retrogres- 
sion of the mental progress in the provinces which 
composed the northern and western portions of the 
Empire. 

These provinces were emerging from the barbaric 
plane to that position in the Empire where restrain- 
ing force should have been of the military rather 
than of the ecclesiastical order; and the principles of 
obedience to the civil law, enforced upon all equally, 
would have effectually quelled the feudal spirit which 
supplanted the old policy. 

Feudalism flourished in central Europe, because 
the priesthood were direct supporters of the princi- 
ples of the supremacy of ecclesiastic law over the old 
Roman law of equality of individuals before the civil 
code. 

While equality in Christ was preached to the peo- 
ple, supremacy of the Church over the State was taught 
as the fundamental principle of the religion itself, and 
no one who refused to accede to the demands of the 
earthly hierarchy could depend upon the support of 
that power for one instant in enforcing obedience to 
what remnant of civil authority remained. ,' 

It was a shrewd scheme upon the part of its de- 
visers to obtain and retain power for the sake of 
exercising power ; and they began at the fountain 



CHKISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 43 

head of control by subordinating the intellectual 
faculties to the domination of the will. Hence, the 
first principle they adopted was that of unquestion- 
ing obedience to visible representation of invisible 
authority. 

It was a perverted application of a great principle 
in philosophy, viz., obedience to truth as the true 
path of mental and moral perfection. 

Christianity itself was the outcome of an effort to 
harmonize the known truths of science with the fictions 
of previous generations ; but it never has been so un- 
derstood by its devotees in mortal or spirit life. 
When it is understood, the devotee ceases to he a 
Christian, and becomes a scientist, or one who knows 
the true relations it holds in the department of ethics. 
If the moral elements which give it its real value 
were relegated to their true position, you would have 
Platonism of the purest type without the admixture 
of absurdities now supposed to be essential to the 
maintenance of social order, and which prevent the 
co-operation of all well-disposed minds upon earth in 
united action upon a plane of truth and purity. This 
has never been favored by the priesthood in Chris- 
tian nations any more than among their predecessors, 
for, should the race once become enlightened suffici- 
ently to understand the nature of life, there will be no 
further necessity for the maintenance of a priestly 
order upon earth. 

There was a definite and positive influence con- 
tinually exerted from this class of minds in the spirit 
world for several centuries succeeding the time of 
Diocletian and Galerius. Instead of forgiving their 



44 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

persecutors, as taught by their faith, they banded 
themselves to exert a direct influence upon the Em- 
pire itself, and determined upon its destruction. 
There were many among them who had suffered, and 
felt that the overthrow of the Empire would forever 
avert the possibility of further persecution ; and so 
they joined hands with the crafty plotters, and really 
did more — through their influence in recalling to 
the minds of those upon earth their own sufferings — 
to change the feeling of the people against the na- 
tional authority than any other force employed. 

They did not understand the motive which led to 
their persecution, b-ut they did understand that a 
government which made no discrimination between 
the crafty inciters of insurrection and the deluded 
victims was an evil to be removed ; and the force of 
their mental opposition was felt on earth long after 
it was supposed to have passed away. It was di- 
rected mainly against the possibility of the civil 
power again being able to exert a persecuting policy 
against anyone for religious opinions ; and let it be 
said in its behalf that never afterward was religious 
persecution practiced among the nations which suc- 
ceeded the old Empire by the civil authorities, unless 
instigated by the religious elements of society who 
had obtained the supreme authority. 

Of this latter class I propose to speak freely. 
When they had accomplished the overthrow of the 
civil authority, and substituted for its protecting 
influence the system of ecclesiastical supervision, then 
began a chapter in the history of the race of a charac- 
ter that seems entirely anomalous. 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 45 

The intellect which should govern the will was 
subverted, and the very principles of law and order 
denied or prevented, and, if possible, obliterated 
from the mind. 

Natural truth or natural phenomena was under the 
direct supervision of saints or devils, and no dis- 
covery in science allowed to be known which con- 
flicted in the least degree with the established 
dogmas of the church. Men, elevated to high 
positions in the church, claimed to be the authorita- 
tive oracles or exponents of the Divine Mind by 
virtue of their office. It made no difference by what 
means they attained this position ; the position con- 
ferred upon them the power and privilege to speak 
the will of Deity, and give authoritative utterance to 
any falsehood as pure truth. If experience had 
demonstrated the difference between truth and error 
to be defined and distinct, the dogma of the church 
pronouncing the error to be truth was held to be 
more binding upon the conscience than the demon- 
stration of experience. 

Under this policy craft and deception became 
prime factors in the development of the character of 
various nationalities, and treachery, with bloodshed, 
the normal condition of the race inhabiting Europe. 

The result upon the people, subject to the varying 
strife, was incalculable both in the injury inflicted 
and the misery endured. The people sank under the 
weight of a tyranny unsupportable in its exactions, 
and hope of earthly redemption from the evils ex- 
tant perished. 

The priesthood indirectly encouraged the continu- 



46 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

ance of this policy by teaching the people that deliv- 
erance from the evils they endured was only to be 
expected in the future life as a reward for their faith- 
ful forbearance and endurance of the present, and 
never breathed a syllable of resistance to tyrannical 
authority, if that authority did not openly conflict 
with the principles inculcated by the priesthood. 

It was a condition of transition in the mental 
realm, in which all concerned were verging from a 
chaotic mentality to a knowledge of the clear and 
well-defined relations which exist in the sphere of 
mental perfection. 

I would not be unjust to the real value of the 
church in its attempt to control the barbarian ele- 
ments, and its restraining power; but I do assert 
that it failed in educating the mentality of its devo- 
tees upon a basis of pure truth. It sought to govern 
by repression of the intellectual faculties, and held 
the race in darkness long after its mental eyes were 
formed to receive the influx of light. 

It is here that its power for evil is still exerted 
upon the earth plane ; for, although nature conceals 
the forming body at first in darkness, yet she does 
not always keep it there ; and if perchance it does 
not come to a natural birth at the proper time, a 
monstrous and abnormal product results. 

Christianity upon the earth plane is as unnatural 
and monstrous in its real nature as paganism was in 
the days of the later emperors. It is an overgrown 
combination of truth and error, and depends for its 
maintenance upon a continuation of belief in the 
errors which craft fabricated to dominate the minds 






CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 47 

of the ignorant. It does not differ materially from 
the errors of paganism which was taught in my age 
as truth; but there is this difference in effect: the 
errors of paganism were understood by the initiated, 
and taught to the enlightened in their true signifi- 
cance. They were not taught to the ignorant, and 
hence arose that mistaken policy, so prevalent wher- 
ever the Christian religion prevails, of veiling the 
truth in mysterious symbols which excite the imagina- 
tion and foster gross superstitions. 

Western Europe feels the incubus of this type of 

religion to this age, and has ever been the chief 

battle-ground between the forces marshaled under 

1 the banners of mental emancipation and those held 

in the bonds of superstition. 

Those nations which have permitted the free ex- 

1 pansion of intellectual power have made gigantic 

j strides in the path of material as well as mental 

progress, while those that have been held by the 

dominant power at Rome are correspondingly weak 

and effeminate. The latter are unable to cope with 

the former upon any plane of action, and although 

often incited by the spirit hosts upon a similar plane 

' of development to reinstate the old religious ideas in 

I the superior nations by force, they lead their armies 

to disaster and ignominious failure. 

To those upon the mortal plane this may seem to 
be a strange and doubtful solution of the problems 
involved in the political conditions of Europe ; but 
I ask you to note this : ever since the religious 
revolution in Europe, by which papal authority was 
defied and denied by certain sections, liberty of con- 



48 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

science has been followed by the evolution of mental 
powers to that degree that religious superstition has 
had little effect in determining the political or men- 
tal status of the people, and the ablest minds have 
endeavored to shape the policy of the several govern- 
ments upon the principles of equity and justice. 
This has given the people a chance to develop in all 
the lines which naturally make the individual or the 
nation powerful ; and as nations are only aggrega- 
tions of individuals, you see the result in the growth 
of governments that can meet and crush out the oppo- 
sition of superstitious nations, no matter how power- 
ful the latter may be in numbers or prestige. 

It is the triumph of mind over matter, or the intel- 
lectual over the brutal elements in organization ; and 
proportionally to freedom from the imposition of the 
will upon intellect does the nation advance in the 
path of true progress. 

This progress is not entirely free from the influ- 
ence of previous conditions of thought; but it has 
this in its favor : if the mind is partially subordinate 
to religious ideas, it is freed from the great error of 
regarding the ideas as having any visible authorita- 
tive representative upon earth, thus giving to the 
individual the right of private judgment, and calling 
into active exercise the faculties of judgment and 
discrimination. He may worship the invisible (rod, 
but no longer does he bow to the visible representative ; 
and if he mistake not the influence emanating from 
decarnated spirits for the voice of Deity, he can de- 
velop the mental faculties without danger from any 
faith he may have in the protecting and inspiring 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 49 

relationship which his creed teaches him as existing 
between the Divine Mind and his own. 

There is one danger that all religions persons are 
subject to in their ignorance of the natural relations 
existing between spirit and mortal life ; and that 
danger consists in the exercise of the will of deceptive 
minds through the law of mental magnetic induction. 
It has been the great source of evils which have 
beset the civilized world for centuries, for it is only 
upon the mortal plane that its evils can be expressed 
in their full power. To the philosophic mind there 
is no desire to exercise power, save for the one mo- 
tive of benefiting humanity. To the religious mind 
there is a latent desire to govern for the sake of per- 
sonal ambition, and the Christian religion is no ex- 
ception. It follows the autocratic system of grada- 
tion of office, and tries to introduce into the spheres 
of spiritual life the same principles which have gen- 
erated the despotic dispositions upon earth. It has 
copied in this the intolerable customs of barbarian 
governments, and is in direct conflict with the true 
ideas of republican institutions or republican prin- 
ciples. 

Europe, under the regime of the schools of Plato, 
would have been republican long ere this, for it had 
the germ principles of republicanism in its independ- 
ence which the Roman arms never could subdue. 
Its outgrowth was seen in the flight of its best devel- 
oped citizens to a strange country, where was im- 
planted, as the basis of nationality, the old Roman 
idea of equality of all before the civil law, and the 
protection of all religions as of equal authority, but 



50 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

subordinate to the civil law, thus preventing the 
possibility of persecution by any. 

This principle was as well known and understood 
by the philosophic minds of my age as by the found- 
ers of the great modern Republic, and it was my inten- 
tion, had I lived, to have held the Empire upon this 
line of development ; for, with the most intelligent 
men as counselors, the civil authority would not 
have transcended its legitimate functions, and the 
people have become imbued with a love instead of 
dread of it. They would not have turned to the 
priesthood as the true exponents of human rights, 
and, in time, the superstitions of the past would have 
faded away from their minds as realities, as they 
have from your own. 

It is unnecessary for me to designate the individ- 
ual states which have been the chief exponents of 
v the principles I have mentioned; but it is enough 
to affirm that those which have abrogated entirely 
the claims of Romish ecclesiastical control have 
flourished, and are the strong powers of modern 
civilization, while those which have held, and still 
hold, to the Catholic superstitions of the past are 
proportionally weak and disintegrated in the ele- 
ments which generate a strong nationality. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE "RISE OF NATIONALISM IN* MODERN EUROPE, 
AND ITS RELATIONS TO CIVILIZATION. 

I am requested to write a chapter upon the secret 
sources of that peculiar phase of modern thought 
which has been expressed by a type of mind gen- 
erated in the schools of science and philosophy, and 
which is termed rationalism. 

This subject necessarily involves much that to 
mortal vision is strange and incomprehensible, be- 
cause it is not confined to special schools of thought, 
but is as liable to be found among isolated thinkers 
as among the most learned professors of the various 
departments of science and philosophical research. 
In fact, it is more often found in greater perfection 
among the isolated thinkers than in any of the 
schools ; for, properly, the power of generation is 
different from distribution ; and the power of gen- 
eration of ideas does not differ in essence from the 
same principle in organic or formative construction. 

Rationalism is the outcome of the cultivation of 
the perception and study of phenomena. It holds the 
relation to science that experiment in science has to 
obtaining an accurate knowledge of phenomena. It 

(51) 



52 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

may be said to be the highest form of intellectual evo- 
lution, because the intellectual powers are the only- 
factors employed in forming deductions from the 
phenomena. 

Belief has no part in the field of rationality, or, at 
least, no part in the premises upon which the deduc- 
tions are formed ; and the only function that belief 
has in a rational mind is to incite that mind to the 
process of experiment to determine the truth about 
any subject. 

Rationalism, then, may be said to be the natural 
result of a combined relation of science and philos- 
ophy, while a combination of ignorance and dissimu- 
lation produces the varied forms of superstitions 
which, under the name of religion, has sought to sub- 
ject the mental powers to its sway. 

In the days of the later Caesars, the great contest 
between rationalistic thought and superstitious belief 
was waged between the schools of Alexandria and the 
priests of Rome. It is not generally known upon 
earth, at this day, what was really taught in these 
schools ; but if you will once understand that a great 
nation cannot exist without its schools of a medical 
and legal character, you can readily understand their 
nature. 

The schools were the foci of the intellectual life of 
the Empire. The physicians and lawyers, the army 
and naval cadets (as you would call them) the can- 
didates for civil and judicial offices, — all received 
their first impressions of their life work from the 
various schools scattered throughout the Empire; 
but the chief seats of the educational force in the 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 53 

Empire were at Athens and Alexandria. These 
cities held the reins of formative power ; for, as they 
furnished the controlling ideas to the youth f the 
Empire, the Empire was more subject to them, in 
many respects, than to its armies. 

I am more anxious that the world should under- 
stand the influence of these schools upon the mental 
state of my age than that the mere victories of the 
Roman arms should be held in such high estimation, 
for as long as the intellectual life of the nation was 
cherished, so long did the Empire flourish ; and it 
was only when they were suppressed that disintegra- 
tion and anarchy supervened. 

These schools of Grecian science and Alexandrian 
literature were rationalistic in their influence upon 
the intellectual and moral relations of the youth. 
Because of this the religious element feared them, 
and plotted their destruction. The religious ele- 
ment in the Empire was not ignorant of scientific 
truth. It knew the baseless character of the gods, 
or, rather, it knew their true character ; but it was not 
honest in its dealings with the populace, and it lost the 
confidence of the enlightened classes who would have 
suffered it to perish from neglect had not the boldest 
scheme ever devised by priestcraft been concocted 
and inaugurated at Rome to preserve the power, 
while it changed the external form. 

This scheme has but recently been brought to 
mortal knowledge, but it has been known in spirit 
life for centuries, and the work of Strauss,* in Ger- 
nianjr, was one effort to give to mortals a hint of the 

* David Strauss, a renowned German writer on the Christian religion. 



54 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

true source of the present religious belief of modern 
Europe. 

Other minds have caught glimpses of the truth, 
but so dense was the darkness, and so doubtful the 
proof, that they have hardly dared give to the world 
the true idea of the modern subject of religious 
worship. 

I saw clearly in my earth life that the Christian 
Deity was not better in his nature than the old 
deities of Rome and Greece ; and as they only repre- 
sented ideal conditions of human development, I 
rather encouraged than discouraged their worship by 
that class of minds who must have a visible embodi- 
ment of principles. 

But I never worshiped them in such a sense as the 
Christian priesthood have asserted; for when once 
the mind has risen to the plane of a rational under- 
standing of religious belief, it no longer can be held 
in the bonds of any creed, however that creed may 
seem to embody divine wisdom. 

When the conflict between the schools of rational 
thought and the ideas of priestly subservience arose, 
the former sought no weapons save those of reason 
and truth. Not so the latter. They catered to 
the dominant weaknesses of the reigning emperors, 
and sought through their superstitions to supplant 
the old ideas of philosophy by force ; and with the 
strong arm of the civil law they closed the doors 
whereby intellectual discovery could have a chance 
of expression, and for a thousand years held those 
doors closed against the ingress and egress of thought 
which threatened in any degree the overthrow of 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 55 

their supremacy. Nor did their work end here. 
They first sought alliance with the civil power; and, 
after this was obtained, they brought to bear the 
influence of direct control over its functions, and 
then the exercise of its functions, to prevent any 
change in human thought upon the earth plane. 
Any change they pronounced to be worthy of male- 
diction and condemnation. 

Under such conditions no wonder the provinces of 
Europe, which were emerging from a barbaric to a 
civilized condition, relapsed into a condition worse 
than their first estate, and for centuries remained in 
a state of savagery that seemed to preclude any hope 
of elevation. 

I am no optimist in my estimate of the relationship 
which error holds in its power of depriving individ- 
uals or nations of their natural birthright ; and when 
I have seen the myriad hosts of these provinces 
engaged in battle array for no aim worthy of blood- 
shed, with no well-defined object whereby either 
party would gain any end worthy of strife, I have 
contrasted these wars, which have deluged the plains 
of Europe with blood and rapine, with the wars of 
the Empire, which always were waged against the 
principle of disintegration and in behalf of a national 
unity of purpose. When our arms were successful, 
we threw the protection of the civil law over the 
conquered, and they became integral parts of the 
nation ; but the wars which have devastated modern 
Europe have left the various participants with no 
other results than their mutual exhaustion and ina- 






56 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 



bility to inflict further misery upon their citizens 
for a season. 

The spirit of peace and fraternity is not authori- 
tative when standing armies are maintained at such 
a cost to the productive energy of a country; and I 
feel justified in asserting that the military spirit, cul- 
tivated by ancient Rome, was superior in its motives 
to that which supplanted it in Christian Europe. 

There is no hope of progressive development as 
long as the military force of a nation is subservient 
to the religious instead of the civil power ; and be- 
fore there could be a return to the principles which 
made Roman authority in the age of the Caesars so 
effective in behalf of intellectual culture and mental 
illumination, the religious force had to be broken, 
which was accomplished by two great agencies, viz., 
the art of printing, and the religious revolt of the 
sixteenth century. 

The art of printing was the opening wedge in the 
solid phalanx of superstition which had enveloped 
the mentality of Europe ; for it gave Grecian litera- 
ture a chance to be recognized in its true relation to 
modern literary culture ; and the students in the 
universities found that there had been ideas recorded 
which betokened a type of mental growth equal in 
intellectual power, if not in religious zeal, to more 
recent instructors of the youth. The use of the 
types gave religion an inspection not foreseen by the 
inventor, for it brought the two systems in direct 
contrast ; and although the superstitions of the pa- 
gan deities were relegated to the realm of mythology, 



■ 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 57 

their counterparts in Christianity began to be ques- 
tioned by enlightened and thoughtful minds. 

The first fruits of this questioning were directed 
toward the basis of ecclesiastical authority, and upon 
the discovery that this emanated from the pontifical die- 
tator of Rome, the northern sections of Europe revolted 
in a body, but did not emerge fully into the position of 
religious independence. It was a partial victory for 
rationalism, for the reason was appealed to against 
the authority of tradition ; but the devotees of author- 
ity were in excess of the devotees of reason, so that 
the allegiance to papal authority was transferred to 
the purported divinely inspired dictum of a written 
volume. 

It was like all great movements in mental revolu- 
tions ; a compromise of forces whereby the mind is 
impelled in a circle instead of a straight line, and the 
mentality of a large portion of the revolted provinces 
circulates around the central ideas of the religion which 
it refuses to recognize from its arbitrary claims to 
their allegiance. 

Here we have a chance for rational thought, but 
not a free field for its full expression ; for the mind 
which transfers its allegiance from one exponent to 
another of the same central thought cannot analyze 
the central thought in an unbiased manner, and hence 
cannot form a reliable conclusion as to its true value. 

This is the trouble with all minds which are only 
partial rationalists in dealing with the religious ques- 
tions of this age. They confine their thoughts to the 
external expression of the religion rather than upon the 
internal relations of religion to natural principles, and 



58 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

become bewildered in their conclusions respecting 
They can perceive the absurdity of worshiping Jupi 
ter or Diana, who once stood for the creative powel 
and virgin purity, but they do not see that the idea 
of creative power uniting with virgin purity to pro- 
duce a perfect type of manhood is only another form 
of the idea which pagan Rome taught for centuries 
before the Christian era. 

They worship the visible embodiment of these prin- 
ciples and results under other names indeed, but if the 
claim of primal authority belongs to any religion, it 
belongs to the originator of the idea rather than to 
the recipient of it. 

Almost the first result of the modern intellectual 
awaking in Europe was the comparing and contrast- 
ing of ideas concerning primitive religions ; and the 
outcome of that work is seen in the growth of ration- 
alism in place of theology in all civilized and enlight- 
ened communities. In sympathy with this elevation 
of thought, I should add, is the direct influence of 
the hosts of intelligences, unseen to mortal vision, 
who direct their powers of thought upon the organ- 
isms upon earth best fitted to express advanced 
ideas. 

Earthly recipients of this wisdom are marked ex- 
amples of the power of rationalistic thought, and 
prominent exponents of the ideas which propel the 
human race upon the earth plane upon the path of 
science and discovery as the true methods of ascer- 
taining truth. 

To them no religious idea is sacred from analysis,, 
and to them comes silently the aid of minds who have; 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 59 

long since emerged from the realm of mysticism to 

the pure light of unadulterated truth. They cannot 

be blind, if they would, and they would not conceal 

'from the ignorant and erring upon earth the true 

> relations of all souls to eternal principles and ever- 

1 lasting results. To them the world will owe its 

' redemption from ignorance and error, and to them, 

also, too often has the martyr's crown been given. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE CAUSE OF THE ANTAGONISM BETWEEN RATION- 
ALISM AND ALL RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS OF THE 
PRESENT AGE BASED UPON CHRISTIANITY. 

It is necessary that I write specifically upon the 
minor relations of religious systems in order to ex- 
plain the antagonism which has ever been existent 
between philosophy and all types of Christianity 
since its advent upon the earth plane. 

In order to do this, I must first explain the origin 
of polytheism, and its relations to mental develop- 
ment in mortal life. It seems puzzling to you that 
men ever could believe in a multiplicity of gods, 
and that religious systems differed so much in vari- 
ous parts of the Empire. But if you once can un- 
derstand what we meant by the term gods, you will 
see that Grecian polytheism was not any more super- 
stitious in its dogmas than the Christian polytheism 
which succeeded it. 

Gods or deities meant, in our times, the creating 
and preserving force which pervaded all phenomena. 
We saw the phenomena of nature arising and ad- 
vancing from an unknown and invisible source, 
and that source we called Deity, or Divine Wisdom. 

(60) 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 61 

We applied this term because it was so different 
from human wisdom which could only create other 
forms, or manipulate matter after it had been formed, 
and because there were manifestations of human in- 
telligences from the invisible world, we connected 
them with the first ideal, but as subordinate exhi- 
bitions of Divine Wisdom. 

To the primitive creative power was attributed the 
function of supreme control over all others, under 
the title of (Greek) Zeus; (Roman) Jupiter; (He- 
brew) Jehovah ; (Egyptian) Osiris, etc. These 
words expressed essentially the same idea to the 
worshipers of each nation, and were interchangeable 
in the translation of language. 

The exhibition of spirit intelligences under the 
titles of angels, demons, spirits, etc., was regarded by 
us as the work of lesser gods or deities, who were in- 
voked as the special guardians of places or individuals. 
Really, they were the spirits of people who had left 
the earth life, but were attracted to those still there 
from various motives. They were in all grades of 
mental and moral development, and expressed all 
the attributes of the grades to which they belonged. 
Hence, they were observed to be affected with hu- 
man passions, and exhibited the follies and frailties 
which betokened a mortal origin. Some of them 
were crafty and ambitious to exercise power over 
those still in mortal life; and, by skillfully concealing 
from their earthly mouthpieces their real nature, ex- 
pressed through them their commands, giving rise to 
the belief that, in so doing, they -were voicing the 
will of the Supreme Intelligence. 



62 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM, 

It was by this method of spiritual instruction that 
the great differences which arose among the polythe- 
ists can be explained ; for the oracles which were con- 
sulted, and believed to be the voice of the Supreme 
Power, often were nothing more than deceptive spirits 
who sought in this manner to palm off upon the ignor- 
ant mortal their own opinions as the decrees of the 
Almighty; and, as there were different oracles, there 
were many revelations which were contradictory in 
statements, and absurd in their meaning. 

There were some shrines which were devoted to 
the discovery and propagation of truth ; and, if the 
seeker at such fountain was pure in motive, he gen- 
erally obtained a truthful answer to his questions. 

It was this mixture of error and truth at the vari- 
ous centers of spiritual intercourse that created the 
diversity and antagonism between the religious ideas 
m the ancient world, and, especially, between the 
pagan and Christian believers in my age. 

The philosophers understood the general principles 
of spiritual intercourse, or, at least, they knew that 
a large share of the so-called revelations of the 
oracles were either the fabrications of the priesthood 
or the works of a class of mischievous spirits which 
infested the temples, inciting their dupes to evil. 

The purest type of philosophy did not teach that 
the Divine Mind had ever been embodied, although 
Plato had expressed the idea of it in some of his 
teachings, meaning by it that the perfect type of 
manhood was like the highest expression of Deific 
wisdom. 

It was this idea that the Christian priesthood 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 63 

taught as having been realized in their founder, and 
in order to insure his acceptance with that class of 
minds who still believed in re-incarnation of the soul, 
they claimed for their deity a double nature, or that 
of a Divine man. 

There was nothing essentially new in this claim, 
for the Greek and Roman theology taught that 
Divinity could be, and often was, incarnated in the 
great and striking types of manhood who were apo- 
theosized after death ; but the Christians claimed a 
monopoly of the idea, and, while they denied its 
possibility to others, based their own hope of eternal 
happiness upon the truth, as they supposed, of only 
one Divine incarnation ever having occurred upon 
earth. 

The absurdity of this claim was so apparent to the 
intelligent minds of my age that we hardly cared to 
attempt to seriously refute it, and so, by default, the 
antidote for the error was omitted until the earth 
was poisoned by it, and the mental powers of the 
race were impaired almost beyond recovery. 

It is thus that systems replete with error arise 
and become intrenched in the affections, and lead 
the minds of their devotees away from the truth in 
its purity. Christianity holds in its principles many, 
if not all* of the essential features of pagan mythology 
and pagan philosophy. It has no more intrinsic worth 
than the systems it has supplanted, but it should be 
better understood in its true relations to those sys- 
tems. It was the realization of an effort to produce 
uniformity of religious worship throughout the Em- 



64 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

pire, and its success was commensurate with its incor- 
poration of the essential features of other religions. 

It is useless to talk of Christianity in its primitive 
purity, for it never had a primitive condition in which 
it could be free from connection with ideas that were 
in existence long ere the term Christian was known. 

It is not essential that I write of the primitive 
worship of ancient Rome, or of the nations composing 
the Empire, but rather to illuminate the obscurity 
which surrounds the nativity of the Christian ideas 
that have descended to this age. These ideas were 
mainly the offspring of two types of mental develop- 
ment, viz., the purest maxims of philosophy and the 
allegorical fictions of the priesthood. Their combi- 
nation, in the form of Christianity, was a mistaken 
policy upon the part of the originators, inasmuch as, 
with the new form of expression, there was a regres- 
sion of the knowledge of its true source. 

The fiction of deific intercourse with the women 
of earth was preserved in the fabulous account of the 
miraculous conception and birth of Jesus from a vir- 
gin mother. The idea was not new, hut it was sur- 
rounded with a halo of sanctity as the only case that 
ever really occurred upon earth. It was a familiar 
idea to most of the primitive converts, but it was 
also taught that it was a finality, and never could 
occur again. It was so with most of the doctrines 
which constituted the body of divinity among the 
various sects of the Christians throughout the Em- 
pire. 

The ideas were taken from the old religions, but 
changed enough to appear to be new to the ignorant 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 65 

multitude who adopted them. The philosophers 
looked on in amazement at the obtuseness of the be- 
lievers in the new religion who could not discern the 
identity of the old legends under their new phrase- 
ology : but the interested propagators of the ideas 
seemed smitten with a fanaticism akin to madness, 
and never ceased their efforts to supplant the old 
divinities with the new, although the latter was no 
more worthy of homage than the others. 

There seemed to be a determination upon the part 
of many otherwise intelligent minds to make the relig- 
ious nature the chief object of cidtivation, and thereby 
bring the race upon a plane of development which 
should preclude any danger to its eternal welfare. I 
can account for it only upon the basis of a desire of the 
crafty to govern through superstition, and the dupes 
to ensure their own personal safety in the world of 
spirits. 

The doctrine of immortality was generally accepted 
and understood by the pagan religionists, and the 
phenomena of a spiritual nature were observed and 
studied by the philosophical minds of all ages ; but 
there were not well defined or well expressed ideas 
concerning its nature and laws, and herein, I think, 
the Christian priesthood exercised their greatest 
power, for they purported to understand and appor- 
tion to humanity a certain knowledge of the princi- 
ples governing the eternal world. 

They assumed to be the only guardians of this 
knoivledge, and the only authorized channels for its dis- 
pensation upon the earth, and by their very assumption 
gained credence from the ignorant, which they have 






66 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

held since by adopting the policy of maintaining 
their position through the cultivation of ignorance as 
necessary to belief. 

The philosophic mind in my age, and in all ages, 
has never claimed absolute knowledge of truth in 
any department as a finality; but while accepting 
the truth, where known, has rather made it a basis 
for the increase of knowledge, and especially in that 
department of spiritual science which had, at best, 
been but partially explored, did it dare to pronounce 
its decree save in the most guarded manner. 

It knew enough of the principles of immortal ex- 
istence to regard them as factors which must not be 
overlooked in estimating the value of mortal life ; 
but there never was that disposition to dogmatize 
about the conditions which has characterized the 
Christian mind ever since Christianity has become 
the recognized exponent of a future existence. 

There were too many problems involved in the 
subject of immortal life for anyone to assume author- 
ity to dogmatize about, and it has been left to the 
champions of Christianity in the mortal realm to 
definitely set boundaries upon the eternal destiny of 
the soul, and to maintain that their dogmas have the 
sanction and decree of the Divine Mind. 

This assumption lies at the basis of the antagon- 
ism between Rationalism and Christianity. It ex- 
isted in my age, and ever since has disturbed the 
relations existing between minds imbued with a love 
of pure truth, and those content with accepting the 
imperfect knowledge of a partial exposition of truth. 
There seems to be no middle ground for a compro- 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 67 

mise of ideas as long as the Christian world reso- 
lutely maintains its present position towards honest 
doubters of its claims to infallibility. 

The reluctance of the clerical or ecclesiastical 
mind to concede a possibility of error in the founda- 
tion of their religious system compels the rationalists 
to conclude that the religious world is stranded upon 
a myth, and is in as helpless a condition at this age 
as at any period in the world's history. 

The error is so inwoven in the life essence of a 
portion of the race that it seems impossible to attack 
it without serious injury to the truth veiled under 
the myth, and thoughtful minds shrink from assailing 
what really is a great obstacle to the successful prog- 
ress of the race. 

Some daring hands are raised in protest against 
the imposition of falsehood as truth; but, as yet, 
their work is but partially understood, and the crafty 
defenders of religious mythology in this age hold 
almost indisputable power over large numbers who 
imagine their future eternal welfare depends upon 
their ignorance of any ideas except those pertaining 
to established religious dogmatism. 

The rationalist, however, has this in his favor : he 
is able to wait, and only needs to have the true ideas 
advanced in an intelligible manner to ensure a con- 
sideration by those minds that are naturally progres- 
sive, and by the aid of the spirit hosts, who are in 
sympathy with liberal thought, a rational conception 
of spiritualistic thought can be given and understood 
by intelligent minds upon the earth plane. 

I say intelligent minds ; for the superstitious devo- 



68 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

tees of any creed are not intelligent in their advo- 
cacy of their peculiar dogmas. They lack the funda- 
mental principles of spiritual perception, and cannot 
become versed in spiritual truth until that faculty is 
awakened. 

Even the rationalist, who lacks this power of spirit- 
ual insight, will be deficient in this essential point ; 
and, if not careful, will make as great a mistake as 
does his Christian opponent in his estimate of the 
true relations of earthly life to the spiritual world. 
He can remedy his deficiency, however; and, if he 
exerts his powers of discrimination whereby truth 
is judged by reason, will be far more likely to 
become spiritually enlightened than his blind oppo- 
nent whose mental powers are developed under the 
influence of a system of positive error which has been 
mistaken for so many centuries as the only true 
source of spiritual light and knowledge. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE SPIRITUAL MOVEMENT OF THE PRESENT AGE, 
AND ITS RELATION TO THE CONFLICT BETWEEN 
RATIONALISM AND RELIGIOUS TRADITION, 

In observing the changes incident to the mortal 
conditions of the race, I have often witnessed the 
astonishment which the historians of earth express at 
the sudden revolutionary transitions which mark the 
epochs of history. It is said by some of them that, in 
order to obtain a correct idea of ancient civilization, 
one must abandon the idea that the ancient peoples, 
whose civil and moral code has been transmitted to 
posterity as the greatest exhibition of divine wisdom, 
were not alike in thought or feeling to the genera- 
tions of the present age. 

There is a general feeling on earth that, in some 
mysterious manner, the inhabitants of the world, two 
or three thousand years ago, were so different that 
the residents of the eternal world could come in close 
relationship to favored mortals, and express the will 
and commands of the Supreme Creator. 

This idea has been diligently fostered by the relig- 
ious teachers of the present age, and upon it is 
founded the systems of religious dogmas in different 

(69) 



70 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

nations. The practical effect of belief in this idea is 
to prevent the present generation on earth from the 
consideration of its truth or falsity, and substitute 
for it the principle of acceptance without question, 
because it has been taught and believed for so many 
centuries to be the truth. 

I have written about the nature of ancient pagan 
worship, but I shall have to state here a fact about 
the Hebrew nation that is not generally known. 
It sought to preserve and hold intact the monothe- 
ism of Egypt, and was really the pioneer of the pres- 
ent age in preserving the original philosophy of the 
ancient world from priestly corruption. 

There was one weak point in the Hebraistic the- 
ology. The controlling mind from the spirit realm, 
who announced himself as the guardian power of 
that nation, was unfortunate in giving it the impres- 
sion that he was the Eternal Being. He was not 
wholly responsible for this idea becoming so firmly 
implanted in that nation, for his motive was to prevent, 
if possible, the nation from lapsing into the barbaric 
licentiousness of the surrounding nations; but the 
priesthood that he instituted represented to the peo- 
ple that this deity was the Great I Am. 

I have conversed with many spirits who lived at 
the time the Hebrew code was adopted, and their 
testimony is invariably this : that it was very much 
altered after the conquest of Jerusalem by the Assy- 
rians, but that originally the spirit guardian only 
sought to have a nation that should preserve the 
idea intact of one controlling power in the universe ; 



i 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 71 

but, unfortunately for the world, he was misrepre- 
sented as claiming to be that power. 

You can see by this that no matter how true and 
pure a spirit may be in motive, if he delegates to 
mortals authority, in any degree, to represent his 
ideas, he will always be at the disadvantage of mis- 
representation on earth, if his reputed agents choose 
to haye it so. 

The practical outcome of this effort was the insti- 
tution of a priesthood in behalf of monotheism, but, 
nevertheless, a priesthood which, like all priesthoods, 
was as liable to become corrupt and unreliable as 
that which existed in the polytheistic nations. 

I do not mean to be unjust toward individual mem- 
bers of the various priestly orders which have from 
age to age ministered at the altars of the various 
religions. I know the difficulties which a false posi- 
tion ever entails upon any class of men in the mortal 
or even spiritual sphere of life ; but I must say here 
that the trouble which afflicts religions of all kinds is 
this : no one in mortal life ever could truthfully claim 
that he or she voiced the will of the Eternal Being, 
and all statements that they did were impositions, 
if from the spirit world, or fabrications, if from the 
mortal world. 

This brings me directly to a consideration of the 
oracular utterances of all deities. There are certain 
natural relations existing between organisms in mor- 
tal and spiritual life whereby the mental power, or 
thought of each, can be transmitted. This method 
-entially the same in all nations, and the ideas 
given through it correspond with the grades of men- 



72 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

tal development of the operator upon the spirit side, 
modified somewhat in expression by the mental de- 
velopment of the medium upon the earth side. The 
natural result of the use of this power is the trans- 
mission of some ideas which may or may not be exact 
truths about the subject under consideration, propor- 
tionally to the knowledge and honesty of the spirit- 
ual transmitter. 

When any mind claims to know more than it has 
obtained by knowledge from study, observation, and 
development, it is a clear case of egotistical assertion, 
if not positive falsehood ; and when revelations, pur- 
porting to come from the spiritual world, give state- 
ments which transcend the ability of a spiritual men- 
tality to attain, they may safely be rejected as false 
from the foundation. 

This is the trouble with all religious systems that 
have a basis upon the claims of a divine and final 
revelation. 

NO SUCH REVELATION HAS EVER BEEN, OR CAN, 
BE GIVEN TO MAN, 

as long as the race exists under its present con- 
ditions. 

Even granting the existence of a Supreme Mind, 
it becomes evident that no mind upon the lower 
plane is, or can be, of a caliber sufficient to fully 
express its thought, and that fact alone bars the 
world from receiving a complete revelation of its will 
and purposes. All that purport to be such bear in 
their own assertions the evidence of their fictitious 
character, and are only found in any age of the world 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 73 

among the ignorant and superstitious minds who 
readily fall a prey to the designs of craft and am- 
bition. 

The deity of any people generally reflects the dis- 
tinctive traits of character which the mental and moral 
grade of that people generate, and, consequently, the 
God of any nation is a type of the national character, 
as expressed through its priesthood. 

There should be some explanation given about the 
ideas now believed concerning the Divine Character 
and those held by the ancient world. The latter 
expressed their religious differences through the wor- 
ship of different deities, each deity being a distinct 
expression of some central idea ; while in your age 
these differences are expressed through different sects 
who regard the Supreme Divinity as embodied in the 
special ideas around which center their peculiar sect. 

Hence arise the most diverse forms of thought and 
expression concerning the nature of the Deity, often 
so contradictory that intelligent minds upon the earth 
plane conclude that the whole subject of religion and 
religious worship is based upon the fabulous and vis- 
ionary speculation of ill-balanced minds of all ages, 
who have sought to bind the world with mental 
chains which should never be broken. 

In their iconoclastic zeal to break these chains, 
they have overlooked the one great truth underlying 
all religious systems which, once understood, enables 
the mind to dispense with them as finalities, and 
relegate them to their proper position in the world's 
history. 

This is nothing more than the natural relationship 



74 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

which exists, and ever has existed between the phys- 
ical and spiritual conditions of life. It is the only 
idea that has never been completely extinguished in 
the dark clouds of superstition which have settled 
like a pall upon the lands under the immediate sway 
of the Christian and Mohammedan religions. 

It will be received by faith, however, rather than 
by sight, and be vague and unsatisfactory to some, 
while to others it will seem to be sure and conclu- 
sive. The former will not understand the reason of 
their doubts, nor the latter the true ground of their 
faith, until they are instructed as to the nature of 
this spiritual influx which, at times, permeates the 
moral and mental atmosphere of earth. 

I would like to say to those of earth, once for all, 
that no spiritual movement upon the earth plane ever 
exists which does not have its inception in the world 
of souls, whose residents, by availing themselves of 
the natural relations existing between the two realms, 
can affect their earth brethren. When the source of 
the influx is from a high moral and philosophical grade 
of spirits, you have a revival of the arts and sciences; 
while, on the other hand, if of a lower type, you have 
a revival of obsolete religious ideas, backed by seem- 
ingly an invincible power of will which convinces 
the most hardened and degraded souls that there ex- 
ists a spiritual force which is able to compel atten- 
tion, if not to enforce obedience ; and, by appeals to 
the fears, often induces a partial change of conduct. 
This is the distinctive type of thought generated by 
religious spirits, and is the power depended upon, 
under the title Holy Spirit, to produce the peculiar 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 75 

mental phenomena upon the earth plane known as 
religious revivals. 

Their benefit, when conducted by spirit forces 
which seek to improve the moral condition of men, 
might seem to more than counterbalance their evil 
effects; but, like all systems of mingled truth and 
error, the evil resulting from such excitements often 
exceeds the good to such a degree as to cause thought- 
ful minds to seriously consider the advisability of 
longer countenancing them as necessary or reforma- 
tory. 

The failure to command the respect and confidence 
of thoughtful minds is their great weakness. They do 
not have the support and, approval of the wisest in the 
world of spirits, because they know that no system 
of religion or morals which does not incorporate the 
motive power of the whole truth, and its revealment, 
is a safe system for spirits or mortals to adopt. This, 
the present religious systems of earth, do not do any 
more than those of twenty centuries ago. The pagan 
priesthood concealed the truth, and falsified at will, 
where they considered it expedient; and the Chris- 
tian priesthood cannot, in truth, claim to have been 
much better. They have arrayed themselves against 
the advent of spiritual truth through the only channels 
whereby it can reach the earth, with explanations of 
its nature, and consequently their temples are void 
of spiritual power of a truthful character. They 
abound ivith the ignorant and undeveloped spirits of 
all classes and conditions who act upon and through 
sensitives who worship there in such a manner as to 
cause the thoughtful and considerate to wonder if 



76 CHRISTIANITY AKD PAGANISM. 

the heavenly mansions are any more likely to abound 
in moral and mental excellence than if the old deities 
of Rome had never been supplanted by the modern 
conceptions of the Divine nature. 

Religious spirits are chiefly remarkable for the 
extreme solicitude which they manifest lest the moral 
status of the world should deteriorate if the relig- 
ious element should fail to retain control of the edu- 
cational interests of the race. They cling with per- 
tinacity to the idea of the extreme sanctity of relig- 
ious dogmas, and imbue their recipients on earth 
with similar ideas, thus preserving from age to age 
the confidence in the necessity of a religious educa- 
tion to preserve the world from moral corruption. 

Through their earth channels, they convey false ideas 
relative to the true status of a spiritual life, and pre- 
vent the influx, as far as possible, of truthful state- 
ments which might be of great benefit to minds upon 
earth. It is the part of charity to suppose this is 
done with pure motives upon the part of many, but 
truth compels me to assert that no spirit can use this 
natural power for influencing mortals without becom- 
ing instructed as to its true nature ; and then, if it 
fails to convey truthful ideas to the earthly recipi- 
ent, the spirit becomes a participant in spiritual de- 
ception, and consequent self-degradation. 

Because of the determined opposition upon the 
part of these spirits to the spread of spiritual truths 
on earth, there has arisen a powerful combination in 
the spiritual world of those who have knowledge and 
a love of the truth in its purity to reach the earth with 
ideas of a truthful character concerning the relations 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 77 

of mortal and spirit life; but these spirits stand aloof 
from any connection with the religious syste?ns, save 
as explanatory expositors of them. 

They are rationalists in theory, and scientists in 
practice, founding their deductions upon the most 
careful experiments in the realm of material and 
spiritual forces ; and their ideas when received and 
understood instruct the minds upon earth upon the 
only solid basis of spiritual intelligence in either 
world. 

They have watched the race for centuries, touch- 
ing a brain here and there with the sacred impulse 
of living truth, irrespective of religious dogmas, and, 
when possible, lifting the veil for a season from those 
minds whose natural growth tends to lift them above 
the domination of error. Religion has made martyrs 
to truth in some ages, but the world has been impelled 
forward sufficiently to now protect its scientific teach- 
ers from religious persecution ; and, at this age, one 
mind — like a Darwin, or Tyndail, or Huxley — is 
worth more to the race than all the popes or prelates 
that have ever existed, for the former have taught 
upon the earth plane the preliminary ideas of ad- 
vanced minds in the ivorld of spirits. 

These ideas, supplemented by the facts of a truth- 
ful spiritual phenomena, will give the world the true 
revelation of the spiritual nature, and, when expressed 
in intelligible language, will not fail to educate and 
instruct all that come under their influence. 

It will be the redeeming force, and, I might truth- 
fully affirm, the only redeeming force that can change 
the present irrational and oppressive policy that 



78 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

religion, through its various types and agencies, has 
entailed upon the race. 

There is no necessity for concealment or craft by 
this class of instructors, and those upon the earth 
plane who receive them will connect themselves with 
the elevated and enlightened minds of past ages, who 
will freely instruct them in those departments which 
their natural talents best adapt them to pursue while 
in the earth life, and insure their happiness and wel- 
fare in the life eternal. 









CHAPTER VIII. 

THE RESULT OF THE EFFORTS OF ADVANCED SPIRITS 
TO INSTRUCT THE PEOPLE OF EARTH IN THE PRIN- 
CIPLES OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE. 

The reader, by this time, may have discerned that 
there is a direct connection between the mental 
growth of man in the earth sphere and the spirit 
hosts who have gradually been transplanted from 
that condition to another life, if I have told the truth 
about the immortal life. 

I am aware of the imperfect expression of my 
thoughts through this method, but the principles 
which I imbibed under the instruction of Maximus 
have ever been a guiding power in my spiritual ex- 
istence; and, in obedience to those instructions, I 
feel inclined to write one more chapter upon the con- 
sequences which may result when a knowledge of the 
true principles of spirituality shall be understood 
upon the earth. 

I know full well the determined hostility of the 
dominant spiritual foree, acting in behalf of religion 
upon the earth plane, to prevent a knowledge of 
spiritual truth in its purity from reaching mortals; 

(79) 



80 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

but, as the mists of the morning are dispelled by the 
rising of the sun in his brilliant radiance, so will the 
mists of error, now brooding over the minds of men, 
be lifted by the rising of the true light of spiritual 
knowledge. This light is the emancipating power 
which acts most effectually when it compels the men- 
tal powers of the race to recognize the presence of a 
force acting upon the intellectual nature. The recipi- 
ent begins an incipient questioning of the ideas that 
he has hitherto held by faith. He cannot help the 
doubt which may arise, although he may seek to 
stifle it as wrong and dangerous. 

The very fact that he doubts is the strongest proof 
of intellectual activity ; for doubt precedes thought 
as much as belief tends to prevent thought, and pro- 
duce credulity. No mind, under the influence of 
active thought, can fail to feel the effect, and those 
individuals are ever the most progressive who wel- 
come the expression of all grades of thought, in order 
that the truth of each grade may become the basis of 
a true estimate in forming conclusions. 

The greatest obstacle upon the earth plane is the 
unwillingness of certain minds to admit the possibility 
of a false basis upon which their conclusions were 
deduced, and the consequent errors which have 
clouded the mental horizon of the race. 

When I revert to the knowledge of the past ages, 
as exhibited by the types of human development in 
Greece and Egypt, I am astounded, or should be, did 
I not know the reasons why intelligent minds of 
this age should suppose that humanity could produce 
such specimens of intellectual grandeur in the condi- 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 81 

tions which are now taught to moderns as having 
existed then. " Is it possible to grow grapes of thorns 
and figs of thistles " in the mental and moral realm ? 
Would the ancient world ever have arisen to its 
hights of civilization upon a different basis than that 
existent today? No! The principles of nature are 
eternal ; the results are the same in all ages where 
causative power is the same, and in your highest 
types of intellectual and moral supremacy jou have 
the same examples that the world has had in all 
ages. 

When the individual absorbed the principles in his 
own character he radiated them to the world, without 
blemish or defect. Where he failed to do this, he was 
only a mouthpiece for the invisible intelligence who 
sought to inculcate the idea, even if at the risk 
of misconception and misconstruction ; and the dis- 
seminator of the idea, on the mortal side, never was 
regarded in the world of spirits as more than a mirror 
for the reflection of another's mental acquirements. 

The methods whereby the ideas are given to the 
race upon the earth are not so essential to be under- 
stood by mortals as to be utilized for them ; but 
they are not mysteries to those of us who have the 
knowledge of the forces of the spiritual realm. We 
center the forces of any special line of thought upon 
some sensitive brain in the earth life who reflects the 
ideas to his fellow-mortals in the form of written or 
spoken language. 

The direct recipient of the forces might not under- 
stand the true sources of his inspiration, and if of a 
well-developed brain might be justified in supposing 



82 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

that he was the generator of the ideas. He might 
never know of a spiritual existence in its true rela- 
tions to earthly life, and yet reflect the ideas of some 
of its inhabitants in a state of great perfection. 
These ideas would generally be best expressed in the 
particular department of thought that his own brain 
had been developed to transmit from the mind; 
still, he would be reflecting to a great degree the 
thought that had been impressed upon him by the 
direct action of the external force, but in harmony 
with it, and the idea would reach the earth as a new 
impelling force in behalf of truth. 

This is the general method used by advanced spir- 
its to bring their ideas before men upon the earth 
plane. They are not ambitious to be recognized as 
advanced by the minds of mortals, nor to stimulate 
the defective traits of character in many of the 
earthly mouthpieces, by giving them any knowledge 
of their true character, hence they may be appropri- 
ately denominated the silent force which works rather 
than talks in the world's history, shaping the current 
of events so that the race shall make some progress 
from generation to generation in spite of all the 
short-sighted opposition from that grade of thought 
expressed by the less enlightened. Their work is 
in accord with the principles of Nature as expressed 
through evolution ; and they do not wish a forced and 
unnatual growth of man in any department of his 
character. But one thing they do wish, and will 
make ample provision to effect, viz., the utmost lib- 
erty of the individual to develop his spiritual nature 
under the knowledge of truth in its purity; and this 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 83 

is why the world is continually receiving an influx 
of ideas, all tending to axalt the natural rights of 
the individual, as of greater consequence than any 
privilege of special classes. 

Hence, the social and political upheavings which 
have marked the progress of the race have tended to 
bring the individual more and more into prominence 
as the great factor in the problem; and, while one 
political system after another is tried and laid aside, 
those only are secure which command the good will 
and voluntary support of the individual. 

To the advanced spirit, in his estimate of the out- 
come of personal existence, all souls are of equal 
value. 

There are none so poor and obscure as to be un- 
worthy of notice ; and none so low and degraded as 
to be hopeless of redemption. There is no disposi- 
tion to separate the good and bad as individuals, but 
a determination that those who have unfortunately 
been deprived of the chance for a good development 
in the earth life shall have a chance to outgrow the 
evil results of that misfortune. Their ideas, when 
expressed through earthly channels, may seem vision- 
ary and Utopian, but they know, as no mortal can 
know, the secret causes of the results known on 
earth as good and evil. They can give to mortals 
the true solution of the great mystery; but, at pres- 
ent, they tfre more interested in bringing about such 
conditions that the race may become self-instruct- 
ive rather than dependent upon the ideas of others. 
The work of this class of minds is seen and felt in its 
best results in all departments of material science 



84 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

that betoken advanced civilization. There is scarcely 
a discovery or invention perfected upon the earth 
plane of any great importance that does not have its 
real author from among the unseen but ever-powerful 
and active body of silent workers. They perfect its 
powers ere a knowledge of its details are impressed 
upon some sensitive brain upon earth ; but in time 
the world has it, and reaps the benefit of it, even if 
its true progenitor is never known there. 

It is not essential that the personal name or fame 
of the true inventor or discoverer should be known, 
but that the power of the idea should be embodied 
in form, so that the race may receive an impetus by 
it to other attainments. 

The world moves upward in this way, and the 
race improves under the stimulus of embodied ideas; 
but the end sought by the spirit world, represented 
by this type, is not acquisition of material wealth for 
the few, but the fullest development of the intel- 
lectual and moral powers of all who share in the 
beneficial results of their labors. 

The stimulus to endeavor through these channels 
is as powerful upon the peasant as the prince ; and 
the great changes which now mark the epochs in the 
world's history are brought out more often by the 
sons of toil than the offspring of luxury. It is a sig- 
nificant rebuke to the world in its estimate of the 
value of rank or position that the deeds of the great- 
est importance to the world's progress are wrought 
by the hands and brain of the apparently obscure 
and insignificant; and the old idea, that royal blood 



CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 85 

and nobility of rank are necessary factors to success, 
is entirely ignored, if not positively condemned. 

No, the true work of advanced spirits is better 
accomplished by the employment of instruments that 
are horn and trained in the schools of experience and 
adversity. These have had no time to foster pride 
and indolence in their youth; and, by the time that 
maturity is attained, the disposition to indulge in 
such dissipation as these conditions foster is past 
danger of indulgence. 

It seems to the world strange that, this should be 
so, but the truth is that the power of intelligent 
spirits to produce results through manipulation of 
the brain organism gives them almost omnipotent 
control over the mortal realm ; and they are exer- 
cising this knowledge at the present time in a man- 
ner that is bringing the world forward in the lines of 
true growth, so that one generation now achieves 
more than ten did five centuries ago. 

This is the triumph of science and scientific meth- 
ods in dealing with the problems of mortal and spir- 
itual existence. The world can choose between the 
religious and scientific modes of thought, but it must 
not complain if it chooses the former that it remains 
a laggard in the race, that must be as long as life 
shall be generated upon the planet. Under the relig- 
ious influence the mind tends towards crystallization, 
or the inorganic forms of elemental expression of 
forces. Under the scientific it grows and expands 
in its powers until, like a gigantic organism, it em- 
braces within its arms the universe of matter, and 
becomes almost, if not quite, what Plato meant when 






86 CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. 

he pictured it as a possibility of human attainment, 
viz., a A perfect Intelligence worthy of Divine hon- 
ors, if Divine honors are worthy of bestowal upon 
any Intelligence whatever," which I, for one, should 
seriously question from the knowledge I have of 
spiritual life, and which none desire who have ad- 
vanced to the standard of Plato's delineation. 






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